The full face vehicle wheel is manufactured by welding a wheel rim to a wheel disk. The wheel rim has a flange portion at one opening thereof and a peripheral joining end at the other opening. The wheel disk has a flange portion the periphery thereof for supporting a tire bead sidewise. The full face vehicle wheel is manufactured by welding the peripheral joining end to the back surface of the wheel disk. Here, according to a welding process generally in practice, the wheel rim and the wheel disk are placed coaxially in relation to each other with the peripheral joining end abutting the back surface of the wheel disk, and fillet welding is performed from outside along its entire circumference.
The weld portion where the wheel disk and the wheel rim are joined by welding is made of weld metal in which both parts have melted and mixed together. As the weld metal is formed in the state of sufficiently melted and mixed together, the full face vehicle wheel has a high joining strength and high durability performance. In order to make the weld metal in sufficiently melted and mixed state, some configurations have been proposed; for example, one in which the outside edge of the peripheral joining end of the wheel rim is chamfered and welded along the entire periphery (Patent Document 1), and another in which the peripheral joining end is bent toward the inside of the wheel rim by about a right angle and the bent portion is welded (Patent Document 2).
The back surface of the flange portion of the wheel disk and the outer surface of the bead seat portion adjacent the peripheral joining end of the wheel rim constitute a tire support and securing portion coming into contact with the tire bead. In order to appropriately support and secure the tire, a general standard for the tire and wheel is specified that a tangent circle of a radius R of 6.5 mm be contactable with the flange portion back surface and the bead seat portion outer surface. That is to say, according to the standard, it is required that a weld bead showing the surface feature of the weld of the wheel disk and the wheel rim be made on the flange portion back surface and the bead seat portion in a size that permits contact of a tangent circle of a radius R of 6.5 mm.
Patent Document 1: U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,633
Patent Document 2: U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,735 B2